14 lessons from the best and worst sites in the airline industry

Despite offering one of the consistently worst user experiences of any website in the travel industry, United Airlines continues to promote it. While I’m hardly the first to point out the usability flaws, what IS amazing is that it has been nearly a year later and the site shows no signs of any improvement. It is one thing offer a poor experience and be working hard to fix it. That anyone could understand. It’s quite another to put a bad experience in front of your customers, make no effort to fix it (after a full year), and create marketing messages to promote it. Over the past year, I have often traveled on Delta Airlines as well – and the difference between their recently redesigned easy to use site and United’s is like night and day. While United was taking a giant leap backward last year by abandoning their own site to adopt the Continental Airlines website after their merger, Delta has spent the last few years investing in creating a great online experience. Lu